The first juvenile mass-murder happened for the FIRST TIME in recorded human history in the late 1970s, in California. In 500 years of gun-powder combat, not once had a juvenile committed multiple homicide. We had a couple in the 1980s, and now it's out of control. So what happened?

Videogames are not "games"; they are mass-murder simulators, Grossman says.

Our kids are being wired from childhood by hyper-violent and realistic video games to be brainless killers, precognitively loaded to be potential murderers. And if videogames are training them to be killers, the movies and many TV shows are the propaganda machines of the gang-bangers.

In videogames, kids are being rewarded to kill, but without any of the benefits coming from the disciplinary training of the Army. And this rewarding response to killing another (virtual) human being deactivates our innate resistance to murdering.

Everyone is born with a deep resistance to killing any member of ones own species; and this resistance is a key factor in combat.

Most participants in close combat are frightened out of their wits, says Grossman. But proper operant conditioning reliably influences the midbrain processing of a frightened human being.

Once the bullets start flying, combattants stop thinking with the forebrain (cerebrum) and start thinking with the primitive midbrain. The limbic system and the hypotalamus are in action while killing; whilst the rational brain is deactivated. But even the midbrain processing powerfully resists to the killing of ones own species; it's a survival mechanism preventing a species from destroying itself.

To overcome this innate resistance to killing other human beings, the military and law enforcement communities have developped operantly conditioned devices using killing simulators in training. Turning killing into a conditionned response.

By the middle of the XXth century, the Human Resources Research Office (HumRRO) of the US Army pioneered a revolution in combat training. This paradigmatic shift would lead warriors firing at bullseye targets to warriors firing at man-shaped pop-up targets that fall when hit.

Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall observed that only 15 to 20 percent of the individual riflemen in World War II fired their weapons at an exposed enemy soldier. When left to their own devices, 80 percent of the combatants appear to have been unable or unwilling to kill.

But murder simulators produced a dramatic increase in participation in killing. More effective tactical and mechanical mechanisms were developped to enable or force combatants to overcome their resistance to killing.

The application and perfection of conditioning techniques increased the rate of fire to approximately 55 percent in Korea and around 95 percent in Vietnam, says Grossman.

Military behaviorists found out how to overcome our innate resistance to murder; they brought way up the percentage of killers among the platoons by incorporating reactive training with humanoid pop-up silhouettes.

Now the video industry has kids playing video games for hours at a time, blasting away at humanoid targets which explode in blood and gore when you shoot them.

In First-Person Shooter videogames, you pull the trigger and the human explodes in high-def blood and gore in front of you. And you do it again and again and again, while eating chips, drinking pop and smelling your girlfriend's perfume. This reconditions the kids to be ready to pull any actual trigger on any living human. Those videogames should be BANNED, restricted to military and law enforcement training.

Wow, this was the right place to ask the question. I remembered my professor, who was absolutely brilliant, told us Marshall had been discredited. Unfortunately, my professor passed away at age 46. My initial interest was inspired by Ltc.David Grossman’s book On Killing, he states that what Marshall demonstrated was true and was true for all wars including the Civil War (15% of the men doing all the shooting and killing). He says it was true for combat pilots in WW II as well. He says this did not change until Vietnam. He suggests this was also true in the ancient world as well. Now I am not well versed on military history but the notion of only 15% of Roman soldiers doing the killing and fighting, remember, Grossman says this is true then as well, seems a bit of a stretch. But I also recognize I am far from an authority and could be wrong. I will check those sources out and your discussions are greatly appreciated.

Again, I salute you all for your extensive knowledge. This has been a big help for me. Not to nitpick, but in Grossman’s introduction he suggested a reliance in his approach to Freud and then even mentioned Alfred Kinsey both of whom to a greater or lesser degree, have been discredited. He relied a great deal on Freud throughout the book. In addition he aruges that we have been a sexually repressed society which leads to the problems associated and described in his book. I thought his argument when have been tighter if he had left out Freud, Kinsely, and discussions on sexual repression (something I don’t think any era has successfully suppressed). And, of course, he relies heavily on Marshall which, if discredited, all of the above would call into question his work. As an aside, a gun-rights activist gave me the book because Grossman teaches some sort of self defense seminar, but, in the conclusions to Grossman’s book, he makes a pitch for what could be described as gun-control through disarmament. I thought that was strange unless I misread it.

42
posted on 01/04/2013 6:07:01 PM PST
by Zhang Fei
(Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)

This is the second complainant who seems to believe young children got hold of guns and shot each other ~ Menino is the other one, and he said he talked it over with Biden?

Not that there was some sort of conspiracy afoot or that Lanza didn't do the shooting, but was he supposed to be the shooter, or was he supposed to give the kids several firearms and turn them loose on each other?

I understand the value problems, the denying of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the hatred against the Chosen People, the invasion of islam, the pervasion of socialism.

Nonetheless, Grossman’s point might still stand, and be quite important.

It is not mutually exclusive.

What is Ann Barnhardt saying should be the first step to resistance: TURNING OFF THE TV.

Grossman says: don’t let your kids play those games — if it’s not for training, accompanied by DISCIPLINE. Of course, those games could be awesome for the training of the warriors of the coming Civil War Deux againt the tyrannical oligarchy!!

I’ve experienced, first-hand, the combat conditioning that LTC Grossman refers to. However, I take issue with his extrapolation to FPS games. I made a series of very conscious decisions to get myself into the position where I finally used that “autopilot”. Once the shooting started, yes, the conditioning was there, and I was very aware of it later. It’s entirely possible he’s right regarding the conditioning effect from the FPS games, but the series of decisions that place these psychos in that very situation still have to be made. It was obvious that the Newtown shooting was planned. Aurora, CO, was planned. Columbine was planned. Most (all?) of these mass shootings are planned. Conditioning only kicks in when the lead starts flying, in my experience. Does the conditioning lead to higher body counts than would normally occur? I doubt it, but I’m sure LTC Grossman doesn’t know either.

What about the FACT that those FPS videogames function as MASS-MURDER TRAINING, simulator, rewiring the brain to over-come our native resistance to kill our own species?

There is no such native resistance. It's all cultural conditioning coupled with deterrence created by state-imposed punishments. Animals have been killing other animals over resources and for recreation since before they emerged from the primordial soup.

49
posted on 01/04/2013 6:13:01 PM PST
by Zhang Fei
(Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)

However, Grossman ain’t talking about you as an individual. but about a trans-individual phenomenon. He says those FPS games should be deactivated because they act as very strong force in our society — by producing POTENTIAL killers.

It’s (para)military training without the discipline, the context, the organization.

Romans used a phalanx ~ they formed a square ~ guys on the perimeter held shields up; guys behind them poked at the enemy outside with spears. (recognize there are infinite variations on this theme, each with its special name ~ e.g. testudo)

Obviously even the Romans suffered casualties, and the phalanx formation had limits. When it broke down everybody was on the front, and they did sword chopping to who tied it then!

I don't think only 15% of the guys in a phalanx were burdened with all the combat!

Grossman argues that videogames are producing a whole generation of potential mass killer; that the exceptions of yesterday are becoming the norms of today.

Well then, his argument fails on multiple levels.

First, these sorts of shootings are extremely rare, so even if they have increased in frequency, they are not being driven by video games, because we haven't seen an increase anywhere near proportionate to the vast increase in video game popularity.

Second, millions of young men have gone through the same "operant conditioning" as one supposedly gets in a video game when Uncle Sam taught them to be soldiers and Marines, plus many of them play First Person Shooters, yet they don't go on murder sprees.

Third, a large number of mass shootings are carried out by adults who are well past the "juvenile" age.

Fourth, the description of these games as "mass murder simulators" is sort of like saying that Battleship or Axis & Allies is a mass murder simulator. Most FPS games deal with war, and in "mass murder" shootings, nobody is shooting back. It's difficult to trust the conclusions of someone who can't even describe the medium as it actually is.

Fifth, even if we say the argument is that the games are not making the murders any more likely but simply make the murderer more effective, that's a theory, not a conclusion supported by evidence, and certainly not a reason to ban a product when millions of people will use it and never harm another human being.

It's time for us to stop blaming the actions of occult freaks and mentally ill people on people and products that had nothing to do with the crime. It's morally repugnant, and is just the 21st Century version of the whole "Dungeons & Dragons causes suicide" stupidity.

60
posted on 01/04/2013 6:20:39 PM PST
by Mr. Silverback
(Don't worry about the cliff. We're going to all land on some rich guy's wallet.)

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